Summary
So you’ve got Obsidian working for you on your phone and your computer, but the problem is the two aren’t talking to each other. You don’t want to carry two devices to access two separate vaults, and you don’t want to cough up 5 bucks a month just to sync your notes across devices.
Two Easy Ways To Sync Your Obsidian
You can sync your Obsidian notes and edits without paying. Here are your two options:
How to Sync Obsidian Over Google Drive
The most convenient way to sync your notes across multiple devices is to use a third-party cloud provider. Whatever provider you’re already using or paying for should work just fine.
Obsidiansaves your work inside folders and text files that you may access and upload anywhere, so it doesn’t matter whether you’re on Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, or something. I’ll show you where to find those files in a bit.
Once you’ve uploaded your entire vault (which is just a single folder), you just need an app on your phone and your PC that’ll automate syncing. That way, whatever changes you make to the vault will update in real time. The mainstream providers I mentioned before offer apps for the desktop and mobile that’ll handle everything for you. It’s a set-and-forget system.
So the idea is this: we locate the Obsidian vault on our hard drive, upload it to the cloud, and let the cloud apps on our phone and PC do the rest.
For Android and Windows, I’dgo for Google Drive.
On your PC
On Obsidian Desktop, you’ll find the vault name in the bottom corner. Click the name and then “Manage Vaults.”
Click this corner button if you may’t see it.
A list of your vaults will appear on the left, along with some options to manage your vaults (ignore those for now). Click the three dots next to the vault name and click “Reveal vault in system explorer.” Mac users will see “Reveal vault in Finder.” An Explorer window opens with the vault folder already selected. Take note of its location.
Start byinstalling the Google Drive appon your computer. Download the EXE setup, double-click it, click “Install”, and launch it.
By default, this app will try to put shortcuts to random Google services on your desktop, so uncheck that box to avoid clutter.
Click “Get Started” and sign into your Google account. The app will open a browser tab where you can login.
Sign into the same Google account on your phone and your PC, or the sync won’t work.
After all that, we’re ready to upload the Obsidian vault to Google Drive. Click “Add Folder” and select the same folder we located earlier. That’s where you upload your Obsidian vault.
Click “Next.” And then again, two more times.
The Google Drive app will offer to upload your photos and videos too. Skip this step and do not upload your vault here.
A little Drive icon should be present in your system tray now and if you click it, you’ll notice it’s being populated. Those are your Obsidian notes being uploaded and synced in real time.
You’ll also see a brand-new storage drive in your Windows Explorer, tagged with the Drive icon. you may access all your folders and files here.
On Your Phone
Your Android phone most likely already has the Google Drive app installed. If it doesn’t, just download it from the Play Store. Sign in to the same account on this app as well.
Obsidian Android doesn’t let you load files from your Google Drive storage. We’ll have to use a second app to upload and sync the local folders between the Obsidian app and Google Drive. I tested the app Autosync for this purpose, which seems to get the job done (it has some ad wall,s though).
The Android app should let you sync local folders just like the Windows app, but for some reason, it doesn’t support the feature. Let’s ask Google to make this a native feature in Drive, by the way.
Install Autosync for Google Drive from the Play Store and open it. The first button connects the app to your Google Drive, and the second button lets you set up a two-way sync for local files on your Android.
Tap “Connect to Google Drive” and sign in with the same Google account once again. It should say “Google Drive Connected” when you’re done. Next, hit “Choose What to Sync” and “Create a Test Pair.” The app will automatically create two new folders named “DeviceSyncFiles” on your local storage and your Google Drive.
Let’s copy the Obsidian vault into this “DeviceSyncFiles” folder.
We’ve got all the pieces together now, and this is where the magic happens. All we need to do is load the vault folder from the cloud storage (by default, it runs off the local storage).
Make sure you have backed up all your vaults somewhere before proceeding further.
On Your Desktop
First, move the vault to the DeviceSyncFiles folder. Then let’s load that cloud vault onto the Obsidian desktop. We’ll open the Vault Manager once again. In the bottom corner, you’ll find the vault’s name. Click it once to see the “Manage Vaults” button. Click it. Now, press “Open Folder as Vault” and this time load the folder from the cloud drive (the vault that’s in the Device Sync Folder).
Choose “Trust author and enable plugins” if prompted, and now whatever changes you make will sync and update in real-time.
On Your Phone:
Let’s do the same on the phone. Tap “Open Folder As Vault” and drop into the “DriveSyncFiles” folder. Tap “Use This Folder” and once again tap “Trust Author and Enable Plugins,” and you’re done!
From here on, any edits you make on the Obsidian app on your phone or yourPC will be synced via your Google Drive account in real-time.
Obsidian vaults are pretty lightweight, typically just a few megabytes, so you don’t need to worry about them taking up space. One reason you might want to avoid third-party cloud providers is that your data leaves your hands. Besides some loss of privacy, if you get locked out of the cloud service, you might also lose your entire Obsidian library. The same is true for version control and sync features breaking on the provider’s end.
If you’re okay with those trade-offs, by all means, use your favorite cloud service.If you want more control, jump to the next section.
The Better (But Longer) Way To Sync Your Obsidian
You can also set up apeer-to-peer sync systembetween your phone and computer that doesn’t rely on the cloud. Syncthing is perfect for this. It’s an open-source tool with hundreds of contributors who actively develop and maintain this app. It works on every platform, and you can access the activecommunity forumsif you ever run into a problem.
The first setup will take a little bit of elbow grease, but once it’s up and running, everything happens in the background. Just set it and forget it.
On Your PC
Head to the Syncthing website and grab the installer for your system. Extract the zip file and double-click the installer to install Syncthing on your PC.
Launch it, and it should launch a web page on your default browser. The interface can feel mildly confusing at first, but it’s actually pretty simple.
We start by creating a new folder to place the Obsidian vault in. I named it “Obsidian-Vault-Syncthing” and placed my vault named “Business.” The Folder Label is optional, but take note of the Folder ID, it should be identical on both devices. Jump to the Advanced tab to make sure the Folder Type says “Send & Receive.”
Now, pick up your phone and install Syncthing-Fork on it. It’s an app available on F-Droid and the Google Play Store. We’ll connect it to the PC app and share the Obsidian folder we placed on our computer’s storage.
On the devices tab, tap the tiny add devices icon at the top and select the listed ID, choose the folder location where the files you accept from the PC will be stored, and tap the checkmark to confirm the addition. Your computer should show up on the Devices tab online.
On Your PC and Phone
Now that your phone and PC are connected, let’s send the Obsidian vault over. Click the edit button and jump over to the Sharing tab, and check your phone’s name.
Pick up your phone again and accept the request your PC sent to transfer the file. Pull down the notification shade and tap “Accept.”
The Obsidian folder should show up on your Syncthing phone app and become available within your phone’s storage. Once that’s settled, simply go ahead and load your Obsidian vault from that particular folder.
There you have it: a cross-platform notes-syncing system built entirely on a peer-to-peer network.
It takes a little DIY spirit, but this Syncthing setup is awesome for a no-cost notes syncing solution. It could even work for your other note-taking apps, which rely on Markdown files or local storage. If you find yourself regularly transferring files between your phone and PC, this solution is way better than emailing them to yourself. For an easier (and less finicky) system, you may’t go wrong with the Google Drive solution. The only point of friction I found was the Google Drive app’s inability to sync local files to Google servers. Relying on a third-party app for that takes away some of the coolness factor. Still, it’ll work in a pinch.
